Dances With Wolves: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Soundtrack]

John Barry | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 19, 1990)
• Original Release Date: November 21, 1990
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000027G6
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MiniDisc  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,174 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

1. Main Title-Looks Like A Suicide 2. The John Dunbar Theme 3. Journey To Fort Sedgewick 4. Ride To Fort Hays 5. The Death Of Timmons 6. Two Socks/The Wolf Theme 7. Pawnee Attack 8. Kicking Bird's Gift 9. Journey To The Buffalo Killing Ground 10. The Buffalo Hunt 11. Stands With A Fist Remembers 12. The Love Theme 13. The John Dunbar Theme 14. Two Socks At Play 15. The Death Of Cisco 16. Rescue Of Dances With Wolves 17. The Loss Of The Journal/The Return To Winter Camp 18. Farewell/End Title

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Beautiful Score Ever Written in the History of Film, December 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dances With Wolves: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

The John Dunbar theme alone inspired me to become a filmmaker. I'm dead serious. John Barry will be remembered forever by this score "alone". When I first saw this film, I was in my early teens. I saw it on the biggest screen I'd ever seen. Let's just put it this way...Costner should kiss Barry's ass for this one! Without this music, his film wouldn't have been what it was. But it still would have been an excellent picture. This music can make you cry and be comforted. I don't just picture South Dakota landscape when I listen to this music, I picture the entire world. I even get a glimpse of Heaven...and so will you.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the Finest Soundtrack for a movie, ever., April 29, 2004

By 

J. A Harring (Fla) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dances With Wolves: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

First, be aware the SACD CD's may not play in older CD players, unless they are specifically labeled that they will play SACD media. (Has nothing to do with this review, but many are confused on this point.)

Very succinct review:
Each main character (including the calvary) in the movie has his own theme music. As the character's development on film continues, so does the embellishment in the score.

The masterful touch is the blending of each themes as the film characters compliment or conflict with the other. As you listen to the music over and over, these subtleties come across. The cd can be played many times over, each time one discovers nuances not discovered before. It's as though Mr. Barry has discovered new shades of color never seen before. These are insinuated in the orchestration of the score.

I also love the "Great American West" feel of the music, similar to Copeland and evocative of a Charles Russell painting.

It is a symphonic dream, and one of the relatively few pieces of music that justifies the cost of a good stereo system.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Barry's crowning achievement in a stellar career, July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dances With Wolves: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

The score to Dances with Wolves portends like a tragic Greek chorus the fate of a doomed people. Yet it also charts the inner life of the film's central character, John Dunbar, as he progresses from civil war soldier to member of a Lakota Sioux tribe. The tension between these dual aspects of the score is tapped to maximum effect by composer John Barry, with magical results. "Journey to Fort Sedgewick" and "The Buffalo Hunt," for instance, are rousing, majestic tracks which transcend the constraints of the movie's somber theme. The cruelty and mayhem which pervades the film also heightens the score's tender moments (eg. "Two Socks--The Wolf Theme"; "Kicking Bird's Gift"). At its best, the music transports the listener to the world depicted on the screen; it situates us in the vastness and beauty of the Great Plains, before it was trammelled with the accoutrements of modern culture. John Barry's work in Dances with Wolves is his crowning achievement in a stellar career. He garnered a richly deserved Oscar for best original score in 1990. Perhaps in time the critics will tout it as one of the finest ever recorded.